


Remembrance

by AmunetMana



Series: The Hybrids [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, M/M, Slow Build, prequel to slash, warnings for mentions of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 20:38:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7816351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmunetMana/pseuds/AmunetMana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He does it because he remembers. Which is ironic, considering Ronon will not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembrance

**Author's Note:**

> I've used a mix of book and show canon here, including Michael's Wraith name, and the style of typing for wraith-speak. The naming thing is a mix of canon and some fan ideas I've seen.
> 
> Michael is maybe my favourite character, and I find every aspect of his story heartbreaking. This is basically me trying to get some of that out. I feel like there's a lot of places I could expand this, but also that I'm happy with how it sits. Please forgive the weird ship. I hope the fic will be self-explanatory as to why I chose it.
> 
> Enjoy!

“You won’t remember this, when I’m done with you, but I want you to know anyway. I wanted to thank you. You were the only one who never lied to me – never tried to deceive me. I didn’t know that at the time, but I do now.”

 

Cool air ghosts across his face, and the smile above him doesn’t show teeth.

 

“M-”

 

There is the sharp slide of a needle into his arm, and the eyes no longer match the smile.

 

“Quiet now. You’ll need you rest for what comes next.”

 

He wants to snarl. He also wants to be anywhere else, and for his captor to be dead, and to be far, far away himself.

 

What he gets instead is a deep, seamless sleep.

 

~

 

_*Clear?*_

Water is clear. _He_ is clear…Clear. He doesn’t hide anything. He doesn’t _want_ to hide anything.

* _Glass shard. Glasshard_.*

 

The two words push together, and it is as though they compound in his head. Clear, yes, but _more_. Hidden, yet obvious, sharp, a cutting edge –

 

Not everything he once was.

 

* _Clear_ *, the voice comes insistent again, and Clear realises he is being spoken to. That he, in fact, is Clear in more than just description. That it is a name in its own right, and yet…he doesn’t remember names being like this before. Clear’s eyes open, and he’s met with the sight of a pale face hovering above him. The man – _wraith, his mind whispers_ – has short white hair, looking unnatural cropped against his head. Clear’s first instinct is _familiar_ , but he doesn’t know the man, not really. There is an echo of knowingness in his mind, but as he chases it, it slips out of his grasp, leaving him on edge and grasping for anything that feels familiar.

 

“Who are you?” he croaks, and his throat burns. Everything burns – now he has noticed it, it is impossible to ignore, curling through every inch of his body, a desperate, needy thing that refuses to be ignored.

 

The stranger pauses a moment, and something flickers in his eyes, before he becomes passive again. * _Not like that_ ,* the strange admonishes, and pushes his hand under Clear’s head, lifting it gently to feed water into his mouth through a straw. * _Like this. Save your throat._ *

 

Clear doesn’t have the knowledge or the concentration to do as he is asked, not with the kind of specificity the stranger manages. But the burning sharpens his thoughts until they hurt too, and Clear pushes them outwards, imprints of _pain_ and _need_ and _salvation_. The water has helped a little, but the burning is so much more than a physical ache. The stranger observes him clinically, before pushing Clear’s shirt up. Clear catches sight of the black fabric from the corner of his eyes. But quickly enough he has no concentration or attention to focus on anything, as the stranger’s hand is pressed down hard against his chest. Suddenly there is a brightness in him, a glowing warmth that spreads throughout his entire body, revitalising him, making him feel invincible.

 

With it comes a slew of information and, finally, a name.

 

 _*Lastlight_?* He tries, and Lastlight looks down at him with something like surprise, something like pain.

 

 _*Yes_ ,* he says. * _Yes. I am Lastlight.*_ There look on his face is like thankfulness, but Clear cannot even begin to imagine why. If anything, he is the one who should be thankful to Lastlight, as he pushes himself up – gently – and actually has the strength to do so. * _You are still weak. One feeding will not ease all you have undergone,*_ Lastlight looks worried, _*…it may have been premature to do it this quickly after you awoke in any case.*_

 

Clear disagrees, but that is mainly because he is buzzing all over with energy, and a lightness that has little to do with being fed, and more to do with the space echoing about in his head. He remembers nothing where it feels like he must, but somehow it doesn't feel scary.

 

“Feels like – ”

 

He stops himself, pauses on the words,

 

* _Feels like freedom,*_ he tries again, and smiles, wide and unguarded when Lastlight has that look of surprise once again.

 

* _Well,*_ Lastlight says faintly, * _I’m glad to hear that.*_

 

~

 

Lastlight continues to feed him, rather than let him feed for himself, or search for an alternative means of sustenance. Clear never sees any humans, dead or alive, that Lastlight feeds on himself. He supposes that is all part of Lastlight’s scheme of easing him back into things gently without actually overtly saying so. Clear wants to confront him for trying to sneak it by, to mollycoddle him, but he finds it so amusing that he’s trying to the first place that he leaves it alone. Clear pushes himself up when Lastlight approaches, eager for more energy. It is a rush every time, and leaves Clear shaking and vibrant. Lastlight’s mind and expression are carefully blank in contrast, but Clear reckons he can crack it. Given enough time.

 

The days between feedings stretch out, and Clear grows restless in the infirmary. There is very little to do besides _think_ , and he has never been one for that. Or if he was, whatever caused him to forget has done more brain damage than just amnesia.

 

* _Lastlight,_ * he projects out, as loudly as he can. * _Lastlight!*_

 

He doesn’t always come. But Clear feels bright inside just like Lastlight’s name when he does come, feeling the now-familiar wrap of their minds together. * _I’m hungry_ ,* he tells Lastlight, blinking at him innocently.

 

* _You need to feed_ ,* Lastlight corrects him subtly. * _There is a difference. Hungry is such a human way to say it._ *

 

* _...But it is hunger_ ,* Clear points out, into the silence left after Lastlight’s words. He does a lot of things the human way, it seems. Lastlight has given up on correcting most of them – apparently it isn’t uncommon for their patterns of speech to get corrupted by constant interactions with humans. Clear had managed to glean that information from Lastlight before he had clammed shut, as though he had said too much.

 

* _True. Although in your case, I believe it’s probably just boredom,_ * Lastlight said pointedly, making a show of checking Clear over quickly, hand ghosting the front of the soft black tank top he wore. Clear grinned at him, unrepentant.

 

* _You should spend more time with me,_ * he agreed, * _Or let me out of here. I’m fine. I’ve already healed, I don’t see why you need to keep me here – it really is dull._ * he paused - * _Although in this case I am actually hungry as well.*_

 

He was too. Not starving, not ravenous. But he could eat. Feed. Whatever. Lastlight meets his stare with a tilted head, and Clear holds it steady, his mind hanging lazily wide open, not even a pretence of privacy in place. In the end Lastlight gives first, sighing and pushing Clear’s shirt up. Clear smiles smugly, shifting himself so he is better positioned for Lastlight to place his feeding slit over the continuous scar in Clear’s chest. It looks strange, a feeding mark on a wraith chest. But Clear doesn’t have time to ponder such things as the flow of energy begins, and he throws his head back, unashamed and unapologetic in his enjoyment of Lastlight feeding him. Life pours into him whole and sweet, and nothing about it could feel bad.

 

Until it does.

 

He never sees Lastlight’s expression in these moments, until abruptly something cold and sharp slices through Clear’s mind, and his eyes fly open, a yelp on his lips as he claws at Lastlight’s arm, grip tightening around it as sensations flood through his mind, drowning out his yells, and giving him only a glimpse of the shock on Lastlight’s face before he is blinded by images.

 

_He’s running he’s running that’s all he can do all he must do running and killing and people he can’t be with people he can’t see people, remember last time, remember them dying remember how it was your fault YOUR FAULT RUNNER_

_YOU LEAD THEM HERE_

_YOU LET THEM DIE_

_YOU LIVED AND THEY DIED AND IT’S_

_YOUR_

_FAULT_

_YOUR_

_FAULT._

_(You                            know_

_you_

_should            have_

_d          i           e          d_

_in        stead.)_

 

~

 

There is missing time in his head. A gaping sensation of loss where thoughts and feelings should be, and there is only the shaking emptiness of a nightmare that has gouged out his heart and left a spent time bomb in its place. He is crying – deeply, and without the awareness to be either ashamed or unashamed by it. He feels stripped bear, exposed by knowledge (life) he feels instinctively he shouldn’t have. Doesn’t _want_ to have.

 

There’s a pressing all about him, and as his mind coils back into his own body, Clear begins to recognise his surroundings once more, and put words and feelings to the things around him. Lastlight is half on the bed with him, his arms wrapped tightly around Clear’s body, his mind a vibrant beacon – Clear finally understands Lastlight’s name, in all its scintillating splendour. He curls closer, and tries to forget everything but this single moment. Lastlight is assurance and solace, an endurance that makes everything seem safer, even as Clear continues to struggle with the urge to run. ( _it’s all he’s good for they died because of you they died because you didn’t do the only thing you were good for)_ Clear’s claws are dug sharply into Lastlight's back, pressing into the brown leather of his jacket, and Clear softens his grip. He doesn't let go though, not for a long time, and neither does Lastlight. Neither of them say anything. Clear is glad – he doesn’t know if Lastlight saw what he saw, but he’d like to pretend, very much, that he didn’t. Lastlight’s comfort is a silent thing. A refuge.

 

Clear thinks that, perhaps, he has been in need of a refuge for a very long time.

 

~

 

Clear doesn’t know if the flash of memories set back his recovery, or if Lastlight just decided that it was symptomatic of Clear having not recovered far enough in the first place. Either way, it is many more days before Clear is able to leave the makeshift infirmary Lastlight has erected. The better he gets, the more he is certain the whole setup had been thrown together in very little time. There were remains of other things, things that were scientific but not medical, and more besides that seemed more military than anything else. Clear had no real assurance of these guesses, but he assumes they must be certainties he has retained from the memories he no longer has. His clothes certainly don’t belong to an infirmary.

 

Lastlight doesn’t much belong to one either. For all he’s saved Clear, for all he seems to know about Clear, Clear knows next to nothing about the wraith still caring for him. Lastlight feeds him less and less, but after the ordeal of before, Clear doesn’t mind. He has the energy he needs, and he’s growing strong and able to follow Lastlight now, no longer having to wait and call for the other, impatient and restless beyond words. He wants to know everything about Lastlight. Clear likes to think it’s because Lastlight is in some way mysterious, but he admits to himself that it’s more likely because Lastlight is the only other person anywhere nearby, and Clear hasn’t enough memory to make up even one person by himself, depressing as that thought is.

 

Lastlight still doesn't tell him much, however he appears to settle comfortably into the habit of letting Clear loose to discover things for himself, a little more at a time as soon as he is capable of doing so. Even after that panic, he'd said nothing ground breaking…or anything much at all. Not that he'd needed to, not really. Clear doesn't mind Lastlight's silence as much as he thought he might. Some people are just like that. And it wasn't like Lastlight held back when words were really necessary. He just didn't squander them. Finally, on his feet again, Clear set to exploring their shared home.

 

It isn't meant as a place of residence. That much is quickly obvious, and Clear is impressed by how much Lastlight has been able to hide that fact in the few rooms he has so far been in. It explains the oddities of the “infirmary” – a laboratory, Clear thinks – and its hasty conversion. Lastlight must have spent more time on his room, with its bed and sparse furniture. It’s nice. It wasn’t his room at any point before, and Clear feels free from the depression of trying to remember it, and failing to even pretend at some sort of recognition.

 

Without memories though he is, he does not feel the loss all that much. Clear doesn’t take much notice of why that it. Any instincts that tell him he should be searching for his lost past are swallowed by the newness of this place, and of Lastlight. Lastlight, Clear thinks, has more than enough sadness, and more than enough of a past for them both.

 

There is madness in Lastlight, Clear knows. He can feel it, for all Lastlight tries to keep it from him. There are places he cannot reach, places Lastlight has hidden things, both in the facility they reside in, and in his own head. Clear has grown bolder reaching out with his mind, pushing gently, playfully against Lastlight’s, with all the enthusiasm of someone who has never done such a thing before (although he must have – he must have. He just doesn’t remember.)

 

Lastlight is almost like a parent, certainly like a guardian in the way he gently pushes back, stopping Clear from going any further. Clear finds himself ever more aptly named – he detests a lack of clarity in others as much as he is incapable of producing it in himself. If there is madness in Lastlight, he wants to see it. He wants to help, if he can, for all Lastlight has helped him. He is still too weak to feed, and so Lastlight shares his own energy, constantly. The warm flow of energy make Clear’s head spin, and in the few gauzy seconds as the energy settles in his body, he knows Lastlight watches him carefully. Watches his expression. Clear just wishes he knew what Lastlight was looking for.

 

(Clear knows what he thinks he’d like Lastlight to be looking for.)

 

~

 

 _*Do you have another name?*_ Clear asks one day. Lastlight is working at a computer, eyes scanning swiftly changing trails of text that Clear has no interest in and little patience for. * _You called me Glasshard too. As well as Clear. Is there another way to say Lastlight?*_

 

Lastlight glances up at him, and Clear is smug. Sometimes Lastlight ignores him in favour of whatever he’s working on, but Clear has slowly but surely been refining his tactics to better grab and keep Lastlight’s attention. He kids himself that maybe Lastlight appreciates being distracted like this. It pulls him out of his mad head for a time, and gives him something to ponder over that isn’t his secret projects or whatever parts of his past still haunt him.

 

* _…there’s not really any other good way to say it,_ * Lastlight tells him, golden eyes fixing on Clear’s. Clear meets the gaze with a thrum of excitement, almost missing the words Lastlight is communicating.

 

* _Really? None at all?_ * Clear is disappointed.

 

* _Why do you ask?_ * Lastlight asks curiously, attention still on Clear. He’d be thrilled at keeping his attention for so long, away from his work that goes nowhere and on Clear instead, but Clear is embarrassed. If he’s being honest with himself, he’d wanted a way to get closer to Lastlight – as though another meaning of his name might bring out some kind of closeness between them. _Clear_ certainly feels more familiar… and more comfortable than Glasshard. Glasshard is for a warrior with nothing left to lose, Clear is for a friend with nothing to hide.

 

He says none of this, but Lastlight is more adapt at gleaning meaning and emotions from the steady outpour of telepathic information, and he almost smiles. It’s more than Clear’s ever managed to eke out of him before, and Clear’s heart swells in victory.

 

* _I guess it doesn’t matter anyway,_ * Clear muses, and Lastlight’s gaze turns sharp again, the not-smile vanishing again. Clear tries not to let the hammering of his heart escape into the air like so many of his unprotected thoughts, staring straight up at the ceiling, * _Lastlight’s a good name. It feels good. Warm. You don’t need another._ *

 

Lastlight doesn’t respond, and there is a thud. When Clear looks again, Lastlight is gone from the room.

 

~

 

 _You don’t need another._ He’d said it himself, but…Clear paced back and forth in his room. It didn’t settle. It didn’t _fit_. There was something about it, something that didn’t ring true. Need. _Need_. Needing wasn’t the same as having, Clear thought. You could need something without having it, like feeding. But Lastlight didn’t _need_ another name, so…

 

The pain was like nails screaming jagged lines down the inside of his brain, and Clear screamed, a united mental and physical cry that rocked his body. He feels Lastlight’s panicked response, but Clear’s too busy having his _brain_ fucking shredded by a blender, torn to shreds, everything he knows, everything he _knew_ , and –

 

Ronon lurches upwards, gasping like a drowning man. No. No. This couldn’t be, this couldn’t be _real_ , this is a nightmare, an actual, actual nightmare he is stuck in and _why can’t he wake up_ , he just wants to _wake up_.

 

* _Clear?! Clear, I heard you scream, what happened?_ *

 

 _Clear_ would have been fucking _jumping_ at the attention. Would have been crowing and thrilled because Lastlight was there. Lastlight had come for him, with _concern_ on his face, like he _actually fucking cared_ , like he wasn’t –

 

“ _Michael_ ,” Ronon says the name like it’s a curse, and Lastlight responds like he’s been burnt. Too much passes over his face, too quickly, to intense, and he spirals about to leave. There is loss – actual _fucking loss_ in Ronon’s chest and it’s too much. It’s all too much. Ronon can look nowhere, can be nowhere as his still expanded mind buffets against Lastlight’s, even as Lastlight’s seems to shut down, as the wraith wards himself and closes up, to the point where Ronon realises he’d had no idea just how much he’d been allowed to see.

 

He presses himself to the ground, arms spread out either side of his body to brace him, and he rams his head into the concrete flooring. He can’t bear to look at himself. Can’t bear to understand. A bloody concussion is far preferable, he thinks, as he slides sickeningly out of consciousness.

 

~

 

The next time he wakes up, he is in a bed, there are bandages around his head, and extra pillows propping him up. He is still in the compound, wherever it is Lastlight is keeping him, so Ronon has entirely mixed feelings on the situation. His clothes have been changed; flinging back the bedsheets reveals a long sleeved black shirt and long black trousers that are close to being sweatpants. On the bedside table, his leather cuffs lie innocently, innocuously. Ronon reaches out for them, but his whole body lurches sickeningly as it’s a wraith hand that reaches out. Wraith.

 

Wraith wraith wraith wraith _he has been turned into a fucking wraith and nothing is ever going to be ok for him again._

 

The alien hands are bandaged, including completely covering the slit Ronon doesn't have to see to know is lurking beneath the soft white fabric. It makes Ronon furious because it’s not like Mic – fuck, Lastlight, _Lastlight_ – it’s not like _he_ cares. Ronon hates him more than he had thought possible. It’s always been easy to hate wraith, even before he was a runner, even before Satedan was decimated. Before, it was only the wraith he had to hate. Now, he finds he hates himself just as much.

 

Time passes. Lastlight stays away from him at first. Ronon wants to call him Michael again, to spit that back in his face. It’s the only weapon he has left, but even that he cannot use. The closeness of their minds, the vivid imprint left in the dark depths of Ronon’s thoughts makes it impossible. _Lastlight_ is so intrinsically his name, to call him anything else sits strangely in his chest. Disquieting in a way Ronon hadn’t known possible – hadn’t _wanted_ to know was possible.

 

He is a prisoner. Lastlight might be staying away, but he’s not letting Ronon leave either. More doors than ever are closed to him, and no amount of pounding his fists against them (green skinned and hideous and _sickening_ ) would force them to open. Not even screaming and clawing helps. Not that he expected they would, but it felt better than collapsing in sheer exhaustion, tears rolling down shiny smooth cheeks.

 

He is changing back – sort of. It is a slow process, and that too makes him want to scream and fight and destroy everything in a hot rush of anger. Maybe if he raged enough, he could burn away what Lastlight did to him. He remembers their last encounter, when things were simpler and their minds had never touched, and he could hate him with a purity that humans in the Pegasus Galaxy revered. He remembers that twice the Lanteans had transformed him, turned him human, amnesic and lied to. That seemed like the kind of plan he might implement, Ronon thinks. Wait until enough of his human it has returned, then take it all over again, leaving him a wraith, dependent and _attached_ to him.

 

Shit – Ronon punched the wall in a flare of tempter – Lastlight must have been _laughing_ at him the whole time. Feeling the way Ronon had reached out, seeing it, knowing his thoughts…knowing them because Ronon had all but shoved them towards him. Feeding him…

 

Ronon can’t dwell on that one. He can’t. He won’t. He won’t be able to live with himself if here even dares to think down that path. He can’t dwell too long on any of it really, because the more he looks at it, the more it is lies to cover the fact that he has no idea what Lastlight’s motives were, because nothing makes sense.

 

 _Feels like freedom_ , Clear had said. Ronon had said.

 

Bile rises in his throat, as he curls into a ball. The walls in his head are too thin, and he struggles to keep them from falling to pieces under his touch.

 

~

 

“Did you find it funny, naming me?”

 

Lastlight looks up from his seat at the table. Ronon is leaning against the doorframe, a projected sense of false calm around him. Slowly, deliberately, Ronon folds his arms across his chest. “Clear. Glasshard, _whatever_. Did you think it was funny, giving me a bullshit wraith name?” _Was it because they called you Michael_ , is what he really wants to ask.

 

Ronon isn’t about to admit that he hadn’t even known wraith had names, before Lastlight. He definitely doesn’t wonder about the names of the many wraith he’s killed, across the years. Lastlight stares at him for a moment, before his breath huffs out, and he turns back to whatever it is he’s doing.

 

“The name was always yours,” Lastlight says quietly. Bitterly – but Ronon doesn’t give a shit about that. “Wraith names are more than randomly assigned sounds. They are formed out of who we are. You understood that.”

 

“I understood nothing,” Ronon spits back, jerking his head to the side, refusing to look at him. “I was a monster. You made me into a monster.”

 

“I only did to you what your people did to me!” Lastlight snarls, standing and striding towards Ronon. He barely comes up to Ronon’s chest, and the Satedan watches him come to an abrupt stop as though just realising the fact himself. Lastlight’s nostrils flare, his breathing heavy. “I did nothing more than was done to me – and I had the decency to make you happy. You were _happy_.”

 

“ _I was a wraith,”_ Ronon grinds out the words – they weigh heavily, physically painful in his mouth, a bad taste he cannot be rid of.

 

“Both are possible at once,” Lastlight says sharply, and his voice smacks of condescension. Or judgement.

 

“Not for me.” Ronon has no time for judgement. Especially from him. Being turned into a Wraith is the least of his disgust at the moment. The things he wanted – _thought_ he wanted – they still clamour in his head, and he stares at Lastlight, trying desperately to reconcile all he knows and still feels into the single burning hate he has always felt for the wraith. He has never yet had cause to do anything but feed that hatred, and what Lastlight did to him should be the ultimate fuel.

 

But, he still calls him Lastlight. And he still feels the echoes of warm protection ghosting about his mind, and the pull he felt towards that light.

 

 _Clear_. It worked as well as a curse as it did praise.

 

~

 

“Why me?” Ronon asks later, much later. He doesn’t know how time is passing, only that he has slept, eaten, and slept again in a repeated pattern many times over. Human food is a welcome return to his life, despite his initial misgivings about anything Lastlight offered him. Not that Lastlight has actively offered it – instead left it for Ronon to find, as if to give him some artificial sense of independence. Or just to avoid being attacked.

 

Lastlight’s eyelids flutter as Ronon acknowledges his presence, and Ronon shifts uncomfortably. How times have changed. They only spend time together if Ronon initiates it – although the more he thinks about it, that’s always been the case, even when he had no memories and no defences. The difference is, of course, that before he had been making every effort to interact with Lastlight, to know more, to understand. Lastlight had never treated it like a burden, but he had never sought it in return either. Now he looks like he can barely contain himself in his chest, even in response to the simplest questions. All because they come from Ronon.

 

“I told you that before I changed you,” Lastlight tells him, hesitating over the last words. Ronon’s jaw twitches, but he says nothing, although he looks pointedly away. His dreads are still white. “When your people changed me, they all agreed to lie, to create a past for me that was not my own. As though by doing so they could change who I was,” his lip curls at the edge – at least Ronon imagines it does. He knows the wraith’s face too well by now. “…Except you. You tried to kill me – several times.” Lastlight pauses, and a rough chuckle rasps its way from his throat. “Perhaps that seems like a strange reason. To pick the one who wanted to kill me.”

 

“Not if it’s for revenge,” Ronon interjects stonily. Lastlight pauses, a hollow space between them.

 

“…I wondered if that was it,” he continues finally. “But I bear no ill will towards you. I never did, even as a human, if you remember. In the end, I was…I am grateful. You never lied. You never compromised yourself, and you never tried to change me. When everyone else treats you like a creature of their own making, even the one who tries to kill you seems like a friend, so long as they never ask you to change.”

 

There is another stretch of silence, and as Ronon’s head turns of its own will, Lastlight seems surprised at all that has spilt out of him – as though he himself hadn’t understood his motives up until that point. Ronon still feels sick.

 

“Kinda makes you an even bigger bastard for doing the same shit to me,” he rumbles, and Lastlight’s lips purse shut.

 

_I didn’t know how else to make you understand me._

 

Ronon stands abruptly, and leaves the room.

 

He doesn’t need to hear the words to know they’re what Lastlight means. He wishes he _didn’t_ understand.

 

~

 

“What are you doing?” Ronon asks. The Lastlight he has come to known is a mostly sedentary Lastlight – he had moved about plenty when tending to the amnesiac Ronon, but ever since Ronon regained his mobility, Lastlight had been a ghost, appearing from room to room, working listlessly on little devices and inventions Ronon neither recognises nor understands the function of. He sees several of them now, strewn across a table, a bag in the middle of them. Lastlight looks to him, and it is the most hostile look Lastlight has thrown at him yet. _Ever_ , a horrified part of him realises. _Not even when he called him Michael. Not even when he tried to kill him_.

 

“Packing,” Lastlight tells him, indicating the table top. “I chose this place for you. There’s no point staying here anymore.” _There’s no point staying if you’re not here with me_.

 

“You’re letting me go?” Ronon asks. He can’t hear Lastlight’s thoughts anymore. He wishes he could – only so he could pretend that was the only reason he could read between his words. Lastlight laughs, moving back to his bag to place another item inside.

 

“You’re healed enough now. You no longer look wraith enough for them to shoot first and ask later. I’ve finished everything time-sensitive, and...”

 

Lastlight takes a shuddering breath, and his fingers grip the table tight enough that the wood creaks under his fingers.

 

“Yes,” he begins again, “I’m _letting you go_.”

 

“Well there’s no reason for you to look like it’s killing you to do it,” Ronon says, and it’s the wrong thing to say, he knows it before he says it, and Lastlight stares him in the eyes, looking utterly betrayed.

 

“Did it ever occur to you, that maybe it _is_ killing me to do it?” Lastlight snapped. “Did it perhaps occur to you, that you are the first person I have had look at me without hatred since your people first captured me? Did it occur to you, Ronon Dex,” Lastlight advances on him and _oh_ , Ronon thinks, _there’s the madness I saw there_ , “that maybe you were the only reason I haven’t _killed myself yet_?”

 

They stand there, staring each other down, Lastlight impossibly small beside Ronon, breathing heavily, eyes wild. Until suddenly they’re not, and Lastlight blinks away the rage and pain, leaving fear in its place. “No. No, I don’t…just go. Go back to your people. Maybe they’ll be able to remove all the remaining traces of my works.” He turns from Ronon, and returns to his things. Ronon doesn’t move. Can’t. He takes a step forward, as though entranced, and another, as he reaches his hand forward –

 

“ _Leave me now!_ ” Lastlight screams, and Ronon turns on his heel and runs.

 

~

 

Ronon understands why he doesn’t go back to Atlantis. Convincing himself to accept that fact is what takes time. He doesn’t want to be attached to a wraith. He especially doesn’t want to be attached to Lastlight, whose death his has advocated for ever since he laid eyes on him. Ronon twists his head towards the window of his room (and he’s _still calling it his room_ ) and pretends he holds any kind of interest in the world outside of it. The thing is, he does. But he wants Lastlight by his side when he sees it. He thinks Lastlight is right, that Atlantis would welcome him back with open arms. He thinks, even, that his team would sympathise with him, would find his desire to rain hell on the wraith even more assured after his experiences. Would find excuses for his attachments to Lastlight.

 

Ronon can almost convince himself he could be happy, living like that.

 

Almost.

 

~

 

He finds Lastlight standing in front of an activated Stargate.

 

“Not dead,” Ronon notes, and Lastlight starts at the sound of his voice.

 

“No,” the wraith replies, when he has gathered himself, “I thought you might like to do it yourself.”

 

Ronon looks at him, but Lastlight doesn’t tear his eyes away from the gate for even a second. He’s not lying. He’s not resisting. “Would you fight me?” Ronon asks.

 

“Would you like me to?” Lastlight retorts, and every word sounds like it’s painful for him to speak. Ronon doesn’t reply to that, and Lastlight closes his eyes like he’s in pain. Ronon thinks Lastlight is perhaps always in pain. “I have nowhere I can go where I can be me,” Lastlight tells him at last, and his gaze drops downwards. Anywhere but Ronon’s face. Anywhere in a deep desperation to not see what he fears seeing most on Ronon’s face. Ronon swallows, and looks back up to the Stargate himself.

 

“I don't have anywhere either,” he tells Lastlight, with an ambivalence he doesn't feel. “Not anymore.”

 

He isn't brave enough to face Lastlight. But he does reach out, and his heart clenches in time with the cool fingers that wrap around his own, tight like they fear Ronon will turn to fog beneath their touch. He doesn’t mind the grip, or the nails that prick his skin. Amongst everything else, it makes him feel real again. They step through the Stargate together, a choice Ronon won’t go back on, although he doesn’t think Lastlight will ever truly believe he is forgiven, or even worthy of forgiveness. Perhaps he’s not, Ronon thinks, but if he’s looking for death, it won’t come from Ronon.

 

He won’t lie, not to Lastlight, not to himself.

 

Not anymore.

 


End file.
